


The Garden

by RedChucks



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 17:31:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15562854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: Post window jump, Dan’s mind and body were more broken than anyone initially believed.





	The Garden

**Author's Note:**

> (This was going to be an opening for a longer story but it never worked out so I’ve just decided to post it as it is because I liked it and wanted to share it.)

It was the oddest thing, to find one’s self in a place overflowing with such beauty, especially when one had expected something cold and ugly and far from charming. And yet, here he was. Reality had failed his expectations in the most thoroughly delightful way and every morning since his residence had commenced he had been forced to deal with the strange feeling of good fortune and the wracking belief that he did not deserve it.

The sky was the sort of brilliant blue that nothing else, natural or created, could ever compare with - deep and encouraging - like an embrace rather than the vast unfeeling expanse it had always seemed before, and was framed most perfectly by the walled garden in which he sat. The shade of the climbing wisteria which ambled lazily across the sandstone walls was a perfect match for the early Spring warmth and the cascades of purple and white flowers further ensconced him in the feeling of comfort and seclusion.

In fact, the garden had been designed entirely with the intention of nurturing a sense of safety, homeliness, and well being. It had been many years in the making and was one of the strongest rehabilitation tools the hospital had at its disposal. For a hospital garden is what it was, and our young man was a patient. Not that he thought of himself as young, not by any measure. He had not thought of himself as young for a great many years, even at the age of twenty he had felt the strange, unsettled sensation that he had aged too quickly and missed a vital component of his youth. The young people around him, his classmates and peers, had all seemed to possess a level of passion and energy and empathy which he simply could not summon, though he felt the lack of it - so strongly on occasion that he felt it would kill him.

It very nearly had.

Which thought, of course, recalled to him his present reality, and his disbelief that he deserved to be in a place of such beauty. After all he had done and tried to do, and the people he had hurt along the way, surely he did not deserve such picturesque mercy. He tried to pull his thoughts back from that edge, knowing that it was a precipice he would not easily rescale if he were to throw himself off, and that self-pity was the worst kind of pursuit, taking one’s time, energy, heart and strength, and leaving nothing to show for it. Instead he focussed on the sounds of the garden - the trickling of the water that poured in the corner, flowing from a gourd set into the wall, down over a statue of Venus to splash happily in the lily-strewn pond - and the hum of the bees as they went about their work, doing what they had always done without care or consequence. The sounds all seemed so sharp and well focused, clearer than they had ever been before, and his mind too seemed to less filled with fog than usual, as if it were recalling how to process thought and sound once more. Somewhere far off a bird chortled, though he could not recognise what breed it might be, and closer to his ears, his wheelchair creaked as he shifted his hip.

His nurse had wanted to give him a cushion, but he had mutely refused and insisted in his mind that such a thing was unnecessary, that he was fine and not in so much pain that such a thing as a cushion would be needed. In truth the pain was significant, a constant, deep, ache within his bones, which could never be eased, but his mind told him to was only right and fitting, his reward for his actions, and only what he deserved. A cushion was one comfort too far, and he would not allow it.

The slightest of misplaced sounds roused him, causing him to jolt in his chair and grimace at the moment of sharpness in his leg before the throbbing returned to its usual rhythm. It had been the click of the catch on the door signaling the arrival of a visitor to the garden, and the young man felt a rush overcome his heart when he looked up to see the woman walking toward him. She was strong-browed with firm lips and plain brown hair tied up and away from her face in a sensible style, but with gentle eyes, a rare combination of intelligence and kindness gazing at him in equal measure, and he felt shame creep upon him at the thought of her seeing him and understanding him so completely as she seemed to do - for he felt sure he must fall short in her eyes.

When they were young she had been the child most full of passion, and had managed to retain it somehow, against the odds, and he envied her that, which of course only added to his shame.

“Hello, brother mine,” she said as she bent to his his cheek. “It’s good to see you outside. How are you feeling today?”

“Claire,” he managed in return, unsure how to form any word other than her name, yet she smiled as if he answered her query with perfect eloquence, and he mirrored her lopsided grin in return, their mannerisms still a match after so many years.

“It really is good to see you, Dan,” she told him as she folded herself into the wicker chair beside him, tucking her feet in and wriggling like a cat until she was comfortable, though he could never fathom how she could be so.

“Claire,” he answered again, and she nodded, breathing deeply and letting her eyes wander over the peace-filled garden, and Dan did the same, content that she was content and that the garden was warm, and that the world could not find them, at least for a time.


End file.
